Chapter 34
ELIZABETH
This morning, there's a different vibe between us. The big bed, the overtiredness, and hours of making love and talking, until we drifted asleep, leaves Matteo and I feeling more connected than ever.
We didn’t go to the dinner last night, even though Matteo was fine about going. He left the decision to me, and I decided to give it a miss. I told Vlad that we were tired, and that it had been a long day.
I’d already felt the change in Matteo’s mood when he joined us at the bar.
He seemed calmer, and we slowly found our way back to one another.
When he stepped away for a few moments, needing to take a phone call, I told Vlad to stop talking about the group and the past. He’d let a few things slip and it surprised me, because he's usually guarded, and discreet.
I need to keep the two of them apart today. Tomorrow, Vlad will be so busy at his own wedding, he and Matteo will barely get a chance to talk.
As for the two days after that? I’m hoping the newlyweds will only have eyes for one another. But Matteo is observant, and he takes in a lot without saying much, so I need to watch my step.
After breakfast we amble around the Old Town. The day is warm enough that I don't need a jacket. The sun is out, and it feels like perfect vacation weather.
Dubrovnik is beautiful. This walled medieval city nestling on the Adriatic, with its white stone streets and terracotta rooftops, is breathtakingly stunning.
We walk along cobbled streets and narrow alleyways, and every now and then we get a flash of the azure blue sea which peeps out like a majestic backdrop against old buildings.
Everywhere we turn gives a perfect postcard view of the city and it feels like a million miles away from the tech lab. Here, in our own private little world, we finally learn to relax.
I snap away happily, taking photos of us and I feel the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
After stopping at a café for coffee and fresh pastries, we walk along a narrow street which suddenly fans out overlooking a stretch of sea so blue, it almost looks unreal.
If this were a photo, it would look filtered, but it’s not.
This is raw beauty, completely untouched, and it takes my breath away.
I snuggle up to Matteo and hold out my phone to take a selfie of us.
“Smile.”
“Another one?” Matteo chuckles, before planting a kiss on my head. He dutifully slides his arm lazily around my shoulder.
“Would you like me to take a—Elizabeth?”
I gawk at the young man in front of us, tendrils of recognition swirling in my mind.
I can’t easily place him at first, then something about his face clicks into place.
The sharpness of his features, the dark hair peppered with blond streaks falling slightly into his eyes.
It’s the expression I recognize most. The dark eyes now staring at me and the mischievous grin.
“Takumi?” I cry, shocked and happy, and on guard all at once. I haven’t seen him in years, not since he went back home to Japan.
“It is you,” he exclaims. “I thought it was, that's why I offered to take your photo, to take a better look.”
We hug one another, but my heart starts to thud, and my anxiety spikes. From my periphery I feel Matteo watching and waiting for an explanation.
“Allow me.” Takumi motions for me to hand my cell phone over, which I obediently do. He snaps a few photos, but when Matteo and I throw our arms around one another, it’s different this time. Cooler, stiffer. Distant.
“Thanks,” I say, when Takumi hands my phone back to me. He nods and I know that he’s missed nothing. He hugs me again, like he’s as surprised and as overjoyed to see me, as I am him. It’s unexpected, too, after all this time.
I wonder how many of the old gang will be here, and now my stomach fills with dread. Takumi was part of the group when we got caught, and he was also there when I first met Vlad at the diner.
“It's so good to see you, Echo2001,” he says, stepping back and looking at me again.
“Echo2001?” Matteo asks
I chuckle, nervously. “We don't talk about that anymore.”
“Chicago was a long time ago. You still look the same,” Takumi says.
“You haven’t changed either.” I try to shoot him a warning look, but he misses it.
“We never met after that,” he adds.
The muscles in my face tense.
“What happened in Chicago?” Matteo's voice is oddly calm, and in direct proportion to the way my insides are heaving. I step forward, cutting between them.
“It was ... just a ... conference.”
“You're not still—” Takumi pauses, his gaze slipping from me to Matteo and back to me again. Now he gets it. We stopped talking years ago, and he assumes I’m probably still working as a hacker.
“I work in cybersecurity now,” I reply.
Takumi cocks his head. “Good move. I’m doing some tech consulting, dabbling in crypto on the side.”
My brain fogs over and I'm in full-blown panic mode as I try to figure out who else might be at the wedding. I should have asked Vlad.
“Are you going to introduce us, babe?” Matteo shoves his hands in the back of his jean pockets, looking at me expectantly.
“Right, sorry. This is Takumi. Takumi, this is Matteo.”
They greet one another amicably, and then Matteo says, “Let me guess, you're part of the online forum, too? Working for Vlad?” he asks Takumi.
“Ye-eess,” Takumi says slowly, looking at me like he finally notices my reticence.
“Did you go to the dinner Vlad hosted last night?” I ask, anxious to change the subject.
“Couldn’t. I landed late at night but I'll be at the barbecue later. You going?”
“We are.” I manage a smile even though my heart sinks slowly inside my chest. I’m now dreading the next few days because so much could go wrong.
***
MATTEO
We return to the hotel after the run-in with her friend. Every moment feels surreal. It's almost as if the odds are stacked against us. It's been like one crazy rollercoaster ride. A moment of bliss followed by moments of madness.
As if Vlad didn't raise enough questions for me, running into Elizabeth's friend just now has me feeling like I don’t know this woman. The atmosphere when we return to the suite has changed again. It feels almost claustrophobic, and the views from the floor-to-ceiling windows offer no respite.
I’m not sure how I feel about attending this cliffside barbecue later.
Elizabeth is anxious. I hate that. I hate it when she’s uneasy.
How we were before that encounter was how I wish things could be.
But I’m starting to feel like she’s burdened by a tangled web of secrecy, and every so often, a frayed thread manages to get away, reminding me of how little I really know about her.
It makes me think about Mama, and how she must have felt looking back on her life with the old man when he was the center of her world.
Before our family unit was eviscerated the moment his dirty secret exploded.
We’re living with the shrapnel of that event even now, years later.
I wonder if she looked back on everything and saw it through a different lens, once the truth crashed into her life.
I feel caught between bliss and uncertainty. Elizabeth is a riddle I’m still trying to decipher. Things have changed between us, from who I thought she was when we first met, to now, a woman I can see myself being with … maybe … for a long time.
Maybe—forever?
I don’t know. Forever sounds too heavy, too permanent, too deep.
I’m not sure I’m ready for it, and also, now there are secrets and unexplained comments; things she prefers not to talk about, but which I learn from others.
Will I also look back on this time with her through a different lens one day? See the problems that were there?
“Your eyes,” she says, kneeling on the floor, between my legs, staring up at me. A tentative smile plays on her lips.
“Hmmm?” I break away from my reverie, sitting on the couch, deep in thought.
“I can never tell what color they are. Sometimes they look brown, and sometimes they look dark green. Like a chameleon.”
Her hands rest on my thighs, and she looks submissive, like she wants to make me happy. She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me in silence.
Are you a chameleon? I wonder. When I don’t answer, she gets up and announces that she's going to have a shower.
“What conference?” I ask, following her into the bathroom. She strips off, but doesn’t turn around. I gaze at her completely naked before me and my cock jumps up, like an excited puppy, eager for what comes next.
She frowns at me, before tying her hair up into a bun. “Does it matter? It was so long ago, I can’t remember.”
It matters. It matters a fucking lot, but I don't say that to her. I don't want tension to seep in again, even though the mood has shifted to something heavy.
“It matters if you’re lying to me.”
She turns around, her eyes flashing. “I’m not lying.”
“You’re being evasive.”
My gaze dips to her pebbled breasts. Fuck.
Why can't this be a normal, stress-free vacation?
Why can't we catch a break? I thought this would be a chance for us to get to know one another better, and instead I’m discovering things about Elizabeth that she seems to not want to talk about.
We could be fucking like rabbits instead of staring one another down in a stand-off.
“I had a life before Knight Enterprises,” she says, finally. “You don’t get to interrogate me about it.” Her tone is sharp, almost defensive. And that confirms my suspicions.
I nod once. “Of course,” I say evenly, then turn and walk away, because I can’t deny it any longer. The truth is staring me right in the eye.
Elizabeth is hiding something.